From the triumphs of the Big East Tournament to the disappointing final loss to California, the 1999-2000 season was a roller coaster for the Georgetown men’s basketball team.

Coming off a disruptive 1998-1999 season that included the retirement of longtime Head Coach John Thompson and a 15-16 record – Georgetown’s first losing season since 1973 – the Hoyas began the new season with a fresh start. Head Coach Craig Esherick, a 24-year member of the Georgetown basketball program, prepared the team to rebound from the disappointments of the previous season.

Ranked 19th in Sports Illustrated’s national preseason poll, it looked as though the Georgetown basketball program was on the brink of a renaissance. Esherick returned most of his starters, including then-junior center Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje and then-sophomore guard Kevin Braswell, the Hoyas’ leading offensive threats.

Expectations were high, but unfortunate circumstances initially kept the Hoyas from realizing their full potential. Boumtje-Boumtje missed the preseason and the first regular season game due to a stress injury in his left foot. He did not start until Dec. 30 in the Hoyas’ contest against Coastal Carolina. Then-junior swingman Lee Scruggs, a transfer from Daytona Beach Community College, graduated late and did not don a Georgetown jersey until well into the season. Additionally, then-freshman center Wesley Wilson was declared academically ineligible and sat out the year.

The early complications undoubtedly affected team chemistry, and the team never attained the fluidity that was predicted. Occasionally, however, the Hoyas showed glimpses of tight teamwork that, if not a promise of future success, at least offered hope that improvements were imminent.

The season began with an easy 81-68 win over Morgan State at cDonough Gymnasium the weekend before Thanksgiving. The Hoyas then headed to the nationally televised Maui Invitational in Lahina, Hawaii, ready to square off against some of the top-ranked teams in the country.

For the first round of the tournament, Georgetown played emphis, easily taking care of the Tigers, 71-55, and advancing to face No. 4-ranked North Carolina. The Hoyas surprised the Tar Heels early in the game, challenging them on both sides of the court. Then-junior guard Anthony Perry led the Hoyas with 18 points, a good start after his struggles the previous season. Perry, a cDonald’s All-American in 1997, averaged just 33 percent shooting from the floor his first season. In the first half of the game, the Hoyas, led by Perry, looked poised to be a threat to their opponents. But though the Hoyas ended the first half up 37-26, they were unable to continue their offensive domination in the second half and Tar Heels pulled ahead, winning the game 85-79.

The next night, Georgetown faced No. 6-ranked Florida, which had lost to No. 21 Purdue the night before. Once again, the Hoyas were unable to put together a solid offensive effort and the Gators took the victory, 72-62.

The pattern set in the Maui tournament would follow the Hoyas for the rest of the season – a good showing in the first half coupled with an inability to come up with a solid win.

The Maui Tournament had some bright spots, though, most notably the return of Boumtje-Boumtje, who returned after sitting out with his foot injury. Though he did not start, he averaged 17 minutes per game in Maui.

After a disappointing 85-69 loss to UNLV, where they shot just 36.7 percent, the Hoyas returned to the Hilltop for what would be the easiest part of the season. The team spent the holiday season predictably downing weaker opponents like Bethune-Cookman, Marist and Coastal Carolina.

Georgetown began their Big East schedule with a road trip to Providence. The showdown with the Friars, a perennial Big East cellar-dweller, should have been an easy victory for the Hoyas. Instead, it turned out to be a debacle. Down 30-15 at the half, the Hoyas shot themselves out of the game, losing 55-48 to the Friars. Graduate center Jameel Watkins was the leading scorer for the Hoyas with 11 points. The Providence loss was followed by another Big East loss, when Georgetown lost 65-62 to Seton Hall in overtime at CI Center.

After losing to St. John’s at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 10, the Hoyas entered the heart of their Big East schedule with an 0-3 record against conference opponents. They managed to improve with two conference wins, a 65-61 home victory over Miami and a 72-69 road win against Boston College.

The arrival of Scruggs re-energized the Hoyas and provided a mid-season spark for the entire team. He played his first game for Georgetown after Christmas, and began to see significant playing time in January. His shooting skills were exactly what the Hoyas needed, providing an offensive threat and taking some of the pressure off Braswell. Scruggs is a rarity in basketball – a 6-foot-11 player with a good jump shot. The twin-tower combination of Scruggs and Boumtje-Boumtje gave the Hoyas new offensive power.

The losses to Rutgers, Providence and Seton Hall, which were all considered winnable for Georgetown, put the Hoyas at a disadvantage going into the Big East Tournament. With the No. 9 seed, it looked like the Hoyas would be making a quick exit from the tournament.

But in the first game of the conference tournament at Madison Square Garden, the Hoyas surprised the West Virginia Mountaineers with a dramatic 70-67 last-second win. In a game with 20 lead changes, the score was tied at 67 when Braswell’s three-pointer with two tenths of a second left gave the Hoyas the win.

Riding the momentum of their win over West Virginia, the Hoyas prepared to face No. 1 seed Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the tournament. The Orangemen, led by the offensive senior trio of Etan Thomas, Ryan Blackwell and Jason Hart, had already beaten the Hoyas in February in a 67-52 contest at the Carrier Dome. That loss put Georgetown in a tie for 10th place in the Big East.

By the time the tournament came around, the Hoyas were primed for revenge.

In the most surprising upset of the tournament, Georgetown dominated Syracuse, playing tough defense while coordinating more offensively than they had in a while. Braswell once again led the Hoyas, scoring 20 points to give Georgetown the 76-72 victory.

Even the 70-55 loss to Connecticut in the semifinals of the tournament wasn’t enough to stop the buzz circulating – the Hoyas were once again a force with which to be reckoned.

The loss to Connecticut precluded Georgetown from gaining a bid to the NCAA tournament, instead earning the Hoyas a berth in the National Invitation Tournament. In the first round, Georgetown headed to Charlottesville, Va., to face Virginia, hoping to avoid a repeat of the 1998-1999 season when the Hoyas lost 54-47 to the Princeton Tigers in the first round of the NIT.

But any expectations of the matchup between the Hoyas and the Cavs were blown away when the game turned into a stunning battle of endurance, going into triple overtime. The game, later deemed one of the best college basketball games of the year by many basketball analysts, exhausted the players. And in the end, the Hoyas emerged victorious, downing the Cavs 115-111, after then-junior guard Gharun Hester, a walk-on who doubles as a wideout for the Hoya football squad, appeared out of nowhere to sink two game-winning threes. Braswell and Scruggs were both treated for dehydration and given fluids intravenously after the game after playing a combined 93 minutes.

The win gave Georgetown renewed confidence as it headed out to Berkeley to face the California Golden Bears, the defending NIT champion. But the team was unable to capitalize on that confidence. Shooting just 27.7 percent, the Hoyas gave a poor overall showing. The Bears took the victory 60-49.

Through the ups and downs of the season, the Hoyas made definite improvements. Braswell’s shooting improved, and he emerged as an effective team leader on and off the court. With improved play from Scruggs and Boumtje-Boumtje, Georgetown ended the 1999-2000 campaign with renewed confidence for the next season.